Syntax

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In Linguistics, '''syntax''' is "the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages"<ref> Chomsky, Noam. [1957]. Syntactic Structures. p. 11.</ref>. It assumes that:
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*natural language sentences can be broken down into components (the so-called syntactic constituents);
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*the resulting structure (i.e., the relations between syntactic constituents) is hierarchical (a tree-like structure) rather than a simple list; and
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*the structure can be predicted by rules (i.e., the structure is regular), which consist the grammar of the language.
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For instance, the sentence:
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<blockquote>''they killed the man''</blockquote>
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is more productively represented as (1) than (2)
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{|align=center
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|-
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|align=center|[[file:syntax.png]]
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|width=20%|
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|align=center|'''[they][ ][killed][ ][the][ ][man]'''
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|-
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|align=center|(1)
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|width=20%|
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|align=center|(2)
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|}
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== Notes ==
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<references />

Revision as of 21:26, 13 August 2013

In Linguistics, syntax is "the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages"[1]. It assumes that:

  • natural language sentences can be broken down into components (the so-called syntactic constituents);
  • the resulting structure (i.e., the relations between syntactic constituents) is hierarchical (a tree-like structure) rather than a simple list; and
  • the structure can be predicted by rules (i.e., the structure is regular), which consist the grammar of the language.

For instance, the sentence:

they killed the man

is more productively represented as (1) than (2)

Syntax.png [they][ ][killed][ ][the][ ][man]
(1) (2)


Notes

  1. Chomsky, Noam. [1957]. Syntactic Structures. p. 11.
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